configure trays on HP4250 via PCL

[horaces]

Hi

I am totally new on PCL, have done some research at HP but did not find a solution for the following problem:


We recently installed a new HP LJ4250 tn with 3 trays. Tray one is the MF, tray 2 is loaded with preprinted paper, tray 3 is loaded with blanc paper. On our server, I have configured 2 printers, HP4250T2 and HP4250T3. First printing to tray2, second to tray3. Both printers have the same IP port but different port name.

From Windows I can print from any client to the correct tray. However, the printer is used to print from a third party software packet. The print jobs are generated by a DOS batch file.

Problem is that from this application, I cannot print to the seperate trays. I have tested on another printer as well and when I launch a DOS print command, the tray setup does not function, it just loads paper from the last (3rd) tray.

To test the printer from DOS I am using the following command: print /D:\\server\share document

Does somebody has experience with printing from DOS to several trays on the same physical printer on a Windows platform?

Any help is welcome

Best regards

Horaces

 

[DansDadUK]

As far as I know (not having used DOS, in anger, for years), the PRINT command does not add ANYTHING to the contents of the document being printed except, perhaps, a terminating FormFeed (0x0c) character.

To confirm this:

(a) Set up a Windows logical printer (or modify an existing one) such that the target port is 'FILE:'.

(b) Add a share (preferably with a name of 8 characters or less) to this logical printer.

(c) Within a Windows command prompt session, issue the command:
PRINT /D:\\myPC\test_prn mydoc.txt

where:
'my_PC' is the name of the PC.
'test_prn' is the printer share-name.
'mydoc.txt' is the name of the document to be printed.

Windows should then bring up a message box, asking for the path to the target output file; type in a suitable name and close the dialogue.

(d) Examine the generated print file (perhaps with a hexadecimal editor), and compare it with the original document; I suspect that there will be little or no difference (regardless of which printer make/model/etc. you are using for the shared printer).

Assuming the above to be the case, then I think that you probably only have two options:

(1) Modify the original documents such that appropriate PCL escape sequences (to select paper source, and maybe fonts, etc. as well, otherwise you'll get the defaults as set on the physical printer) are embedded within each document.

[For details of PCL sequences, see the FAQs section of this forum for directions on where to obtain the PCL manuals, including the PCL5 Technical Reference Manual.]

(2) 'Pipe' the contents of each document through a utility (which you'll have to write) which adds the required sequences to the front of the document, then passes the result to the PRINT command.

I'm not that familiar with DOS, so I don't know if there is the equivalent of the 'cat' command to start the pipeline; I don't think that TYPE will do it.

 

[TonHu]

We just files an internal issue where the problem at hand is that the Windows driver actively adds an paper-bin command to the printer to grab the paper from bin 1. Only when printing from Windows apps that set the bin to something else, or setting the default bin to another on the driver can change that.
In our (technical) opinion that's a HP driver bug.
We have not yet been able to solve this issue, other than adding an extra driver to Windows, the Laserjet 4 plus is a good choice, that prints to the same port as the other drivers, and use that (shared) port to print our output containing direct bin-select commands to.
It prohibits the 'secure printing' features (start the job after entering some pin-code on the printer, to disallow others to read your confidential output), and requires extra configuration on the client-PC's (we have several hundreds in some sites).

Ultimately it is not easily solvable, and we found this 'feature' on other printers & manufacturers as well.

HTH
TonHu

 

[TonHu]

Oh, btw, the bin selection commands are sent using the <esc>&l<bin>H codes (Escape, Ampersand, Lowercase-L, binnumber in ascii digits, uppercase-H) and should be the very first command sent to a page.

HTH
TonHu